Prior art machines connected to the water mains generally comprise tanks containing soluble products, mixing chambers to mix water with a soluble product or with a mixture of soluble products, dispensing ducts that connect the tanks to the mixing chambers and the latter to the dispensing nozzle, a special unit for espresso coffee, at least one solenoid valve to control delivery of water to the mixing chamber, metering means to meter the exact quantity of soluble product required to obtain a specific beverage and a suction cleaner to clean, after each beverage is dispensed, the dispensing ducts and the mixing chambers from any residue that may deposit.
In prior art machines, the components or parts listed above and others not mentioned, are mounted with the exception of the tanks for soluble products in a specific compartment and, in order to restrict the overall dimensions of the machine, they are placed in close contact with one another or superimposed, making it practically impossible to gain access to a part from the front to perform regular or special maintenance operations without having to remove the superimposed parts and/or some adjacent parts.
Although making it possible to produce a compact dispensing machine, the particular arrangement of the parts inside the machine makes it difficult to access the various parts to perform maintenance operations or to inspect them. In fact, when the dispensing machine is installed in a public place even the smallest adjustment requires disassembly and subsequent reassembly of one or more components or parts, resulting in an increase in working times and hence in directly related costs or requires access from the rear of the machine, which is somewhat impractical.
To solve this problem machines have been supplied equipped with the coffee unit, that is the unit that by grinding the coffee beans and subsequent known operations makes it possible to dispense espresso coffee, provided with runners sliding in specific guides produced on the frame of the machine to allow extraction, as if it were a drawer, of the entire unit with respect to the machine.
However, a machine of this type only allows simple extraction of the coffee unit, without however providing easy access to the remaining parts constituting the machine.
The object of the present invention is to solve the drawbacks of prior art, by providing a machine for distributing beverages obtained from soluble products the structure of which allows, internally, ergonomic distribution of the component parts so that the different parts may be accessed without necessarily having to disassemble the entire machine.